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SANS has announced the agenda for the 2014 European ICS Security Summit in Amsterdam this September with a broad set of sessions from some of the industry's most respected experts and visionaries in what promises to be a valuable conference programme.

Running from the 21st to the 22nd of September at the Radisson Blu Amsterdam, the 2-day European Industrial Control Systems Security Summit will be chaired by Markus Braendle and brings together program managers, control systems engineers, IT security professionals and critical infrastructure protection specialists from asset owners and operators along with government and research leaders. Braendle, Group Head of Cyber Security for ABB will also present a session examining how organisations can build cyber security programs that address the evolving challenges in a holistic, effective and sustainable way.

The Summit provides the opportunity to learn and discuss the newest and most challenging cyber security risks to control systems and the most effective defences. The programme focuses on effective actions designed to provide attendees with new tools and techniques that can be put to work immediately upon returning back to their respective environments.

Many of the participants work directly in the industry and offer a candid viewpoint with relevance to attendees from across the spectrum of industries relevant to ICS. For example Tyler Williams and Auke Huistra, from Shell will provide a session on the challenges of PCD IT Security.

Stefan Woronka from Siemens AG, Industry Division will offer a session on the 'Security of SCADA Systems in Industry and Energy Management'. The session is complemented by Sebastian Ranft, from the Smart Grid Division at Siemens AG with a 'Deep Dive on Patch Management' for SCADA Systems.

Steffen Wendzel, Head of Secure Building Automation Systems at Fraunhofer FKIE offers a fascinating session on the feasibility of smart building botnets (SBB). While Rauli Kaksonen, CTO of Codenomicon examines the lessons learnt from Heartbleed; a simple programming mistake in the OpenSSL library that left millions of services and devices vulnerable. The session also offers some valuable guidance on future strategies for mitigating similar situations.

Kaksonen joins Ralph Langner, CEO of The Langner Group, Graham Speake from Yokogawa alongside several other participants on a the first of several varied panel discussion with the taxing question: "What are the real risks we are facing and how should they be effectively addressed? Other speakers and panellists at the Summit include:

Dr Klaus Kursawe, European Network For Cyber Security (ENCS)

Jonathan Pollett, Founder of Red Tiger Security

Charles Hosner, Partner at KPMG

Robert Malmgren, Senior Security Consultant for ROMAB

Justin Searle from UtiliSec

The summit also includes a number of technical and solution sessions run by experts including Mandiant, Palo Alto, Management Doctors AB as well as several networking sessions and an evening reception sponsored by Rockwell Automation.

Following the Summit, SANS will be running two 5 day training courses for information security professionals working within ICS. The "Assessing and Exploiting Control Systems" course taught by Don Weber teaches hands-on penetration testing techniques used to test embedded electronic field devices, network protocols, RF communications, and controlling servers of ICS and Smart Grid systems like PLCs, RTUs, smart meters, Home Area Networks (HAN), smart appliances, SCADA, substation automation, and synchrophasors. This course is structured around the formal penetration testing methodology created by the National Energy Sector Cybersecurity Organization Resource (NESCOR), a United States Department of Energy project.

The event will also see SANS ICS410: ICS/SCADA Security Essentials course taught by Justin Searle, which provides a foundational set of standardised skills and knowledge for industrial cybersecurity professionals. The course is designed to ensure that the workforce involved in supporting and defending industrial control systems is trained to keep the operational environment safe, secure, and resilient against current and emerging cyber threats.

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The SANS Institute was established in 1989 as a cooperative research and education organization. SANS is the most trusted and, by far, the largest provider of cyber security training and certification to professionals at governments and commercial institutions world-wide. Renowned SANS instructors teach over 50 different courses at more than 200 live cyber security training events as well as online. GIAC, an affiliate of the SANS Institute, validates employee qualifications via 30 hands-on, technical certifications in information security. The SANS Technology Institute, a regionally accredited independent subsidiary, offers master's degrees in cyber security. SANS offers a myriad of free resources to the InfoSec community including consensus projects, research reports, and newsletters; it also operates the Internet's early warning system--the Internet Storm Center. At the heart of SANS are the many security practitioners, representing varied global organizations from corporations to universities, working together to help the entire information security community. (https://www.sans.org)